Help getting an LCD to work

I haven't used Optrex yet but My biggest prob getting those black lines to go away and everything else to init was that I left the R/W line open. The controller inputs have internal weak pullups so you have to either tie R/W low or drive it with the PIC.

The other thing I found was that the home command was pretty useless or something like that. It didn't do what the HDwhatever Spec sheet said. I have to use Clear Display.

Also, resetting the PIC which runs my LCD init code sometimes doesn't give the LCD enough time to do whatever it needs to do, I have to power down the LCD.

I'm not sure, but for the 4 bit interface, I may have had to run the init code twice. Once to get it in 4 bit mode and again once it's there.